cannot login in my linux machine

Question

I am new to Linux. I want to remove the home directory of the user andreas which was the administrator account into a directory called admins. I ran the command

mv /home/andreas /admins

I logged out and tried to log in and it does not let me log in. When I entered the password it leaves me at the login screen. How can I fix it?

root@ubuntu:/home# ls -al
total 28
drwxr-xr-x  7 root    root    4096 Mar  4 10:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root    root    4096 Mar  4 10:10 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 root    root    4096 Mar  4 10:10 andreas
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root    4096 Mar  4 08:58 employees
drwxr-xr-x 19 kostas  kostas  4096 Mar  4 10:23 kostas
drwxrwxrwx  2 nicolas nicolas 4096 Feb 19 08:54 nicolas
drwxr-xr-x  2 root    root    4096 Mar  4 08:56 users



root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# ls -al
total 12
drwxr-xr-x  3 root    root    4096 Mar  4 10:10 .
drwxr-xr-x  7 root    root    4096 Mar  4 10:19 ..
drwxr-xr-x 22 andreas andreas 4096 Mar  4 08:55 admins
root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# 


root@ubuntu:/home# ls
admins  andreas  employees  kostas  nicolas  users

root@ubuntu:/home/admins# ls
Desktop    examples.desktop  personal_info.txt  sensitive_info.txt
Documents  mario             Pictures           Templates
Downloads  Music             Public             Videos
root@ubuntu:/home/admins#

Pls post the result of ls -al do this inside andreas dir — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:34
No do ls -al andreas and don't remove the one you have posted already — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:35
There is nothing to be alarmed over we just moved andreas back so we aught to see it in there with the others. — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:38
Pls post the result of ls -al admins, Don't move anything again till I tell you — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 19:03
Now I want to know do you want to get rid of andreas completely as you had wanted? The andreas dir you see is the one we moved back, so its ok where it is... — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 19:07
No andreas is my administrator and I want to make a folder (admins) to put him inside. Now as I understood here admins directory has all the content that andreas should have — andreas, Mar 04 '17 at 19:10
pls hold that last command it should be cp . -R ../andreas — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 19:20
pls check that the files are in andreas, and where is admins. In andreas or in /home? — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 19:27
Please run this: sudo cp -r /etc/skel /home/andreas was attending to my kids — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 19:59

George Udosen · Answer 1 · 2017-03-05T16:01:13.127

You actually moved andreas home directory to the location /admins so andreas can't log in. To fix we will try to create another user and add to the sudo group from the recovery mode using the grub menu.

Steps:

Boot into your GRUB menu using the shift key
- at boot press the shift key so you see the grub menu, then
Select the Advance option from grub menu
Select recovery mode from the list presented to you.
Choose the root option from the list seen.
Then when the terminal appears press the Enter key, and type the following in the terminal:

a. mount -o remount,rw /

b. adduser new_user_name
- enter passowrd and just press the Enter key for all other options
c. usermod -a new_user -G sudo

d. Type exit and press the Enter
Try to log in.
If you login using the new user, return andreas' home directory using the terminal with:
```
sudo mv /admins /home/andreas
```
Look at the content of /home/andreas it should be the same as before you moved it. Now logout and try to log in as andreas.

UPDATE:

Since the folder is lacking the required default files for a user:

a. Change into the admins directory and copy the contents into the andreas one level up with: cp . -R ../
Copy the contents of the /etc/skel dir into andreas with:
```
sudo cp -r /etc/skel /home/andreas 
```
Make sure these files are present in the /home/andreas/skel folder in andreas:
```
.bash_logout
.bashrc
examples.desktop
.profile
```
Change ownership of skel folder and its contents:
```
sudo chmod -R andreas:andreas skel
```
Remove the admins folder from andreas: rm -rf admins
Move the skel directory and move its content out into the parent folder andreas:
```
cp . -r ../
```

Now the andreas folder should have these files in it:

.bash_logout  .bashrc   examples.desktop   .profile
Desktop    examples.desktop  personal_info.txt  sensitive_info.txt
Documents  mario             Pictures           Templates
Downloads  Music             Public             Videos

Now we check to see if user andreas is ok in two places: /etc/passwd and /etc/group:

cat /etc/passwd | grep andreas

# result should like this
george:x:1000:1000:george,,,:/home/george:/bin/bash

cat /etc/group | grep george

# result should be like this:
adm:x:4:syslog,george
cdrom:x:24:george
sudo:x:27:george
dip:x:30:george
www-data:x:33:george
plugdev:x:46:george
lpadmin:x:108:george
george:x:1000:    <---------| subject of interest
sambashare:x:124:george
docker:x:999:george
libvirtd:x:134:george

If user andreas is not found in either of this places, then use
```
sudo vipw 
sudo vigr
```
to add them to the /etc/passwd and /etc/group file respectively using the format seen there, and set a new password with:
```
sudo passwd andreas
```
Now to make sure user andreas owns the /home/andreas run ls -al /home/andreas and make sure the owner = andreas and group = andreas, else run:
```
sudo chown -R andreas:andreas /home/andreas
```
Now change the password for andreas just to be safe:
```
sudo passwd andreas
```
Now reboot and log in using user andreas, if successful you can now delete the new_user created earlier with: sudo deluser new_user --delete-home

Two alternatives are to move /admins back to /home/andreas or to set the home directory to /admins with usermod -d /admins andreas. — Chai T. Rex, Mar 04 '17 at 18:08
Yes Rex I thought of the move but remembered the OP said a dir admins already existed so felt best bet would be to create andreas and then OP can sort out the dir issue — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:11
While I type adduser andreas it says that user already exist shall I put other name? — andreas, Mar 04 '17 at 18:12
Yes please use another name, after you can fix andreas from the new user — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:13
Once your through let me know so we can look at recovery that directory you moved to /admins — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:15
now use sudo mv /admins /home/andreas to return that dir you moved before — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:26
root@ubuntu:/home# ls andreas employees kostas nicolas users root@ubuntu:/home# cd andreas/ root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# ls admins root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# mv /admins /home andreas mv: target andreas' is not a directory root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# mv /admins /home/andreas mv: cannot stat/admins': No such file or directory root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# ls admins root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# mv admins /home/andreas mv: admins' and/home/andreas/admins' are the same file root@ubuntu:/home/andreas# — andreas, Mar 04 '17 at 18:28
Please do nothing just post the contests of ls -al /home/andreas — George Udosen, Mar 04 '17 at 18:32

cannot login in my linux machine

1 Answers1